How to Document a Non-conformity

As defined in ISO 9000: 2000 (3.6.2), nonconformity is "non-fulfilment of a

requirement".
There are three parts to a well-documented nonconformity: 1. Evidence to support the auditors findings. 2. The record of the requirement against which the non-conformity was detected. 3. A statement of the non-conformity. While all of these need to be addressed, in actual practice, it is the audit evidence that is the first part to be identified and documented. The steps to be followed by the auditor to document an observed non-conformity are as follows: Step 1: Observe situations that may be a potential nonconformity during an audit, even though it may not be 100 percent certain at that point in time. Step 2: Document the audit evidence for the potential nonconformity in audit notes, before pursuing additional audit trails, in order to confirm if it actually is nonconformity. The audit evidence should be documented and be sufficiently detailed, to enable the audited organisation to find and confirm exactly what the auditor observed. Remember that if there is no audit evidence there is no nonconformity. Step 3: The next step the auditor will need to take is to identify and record the specific requirement that is not being met.